Lyndon B. Johnson (5:35)

The phase out began at OEO's Washington headquarters in January. It's a job which Director Howard Phillips has pursued with enthusiasm. Since Phillips took over, many experienced employees have left a number of projects cancelled and some anti poverty activities turned over to other departments. Cleveland's OEO program centers around six Malde services in the city. They receive more than $2 million a year in federal money. The centers house more than 20 agencies funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity. Funds for services like this thrift Shop run out at the end of June. But ever since the administration announced that OEO would be abandoned, morale has been low and people have been leaving. I think people feel very helpless. What can they possibly do when they have not been legitimately part of the decision making process? And some of us have talked to our congressmen and they, our own legislators face the same kind of frustration.

Chris Hayes (6:36)

People have been left out of the decision making process. We've talked to our congressmen, our own legislators, and they feel the same way. They've been left out of it too. A federal agency unilaterally shut down by just a guy who was sent there by the President, a pugnacious guy who declared he was there to shut the place down. The staff was purged. Ongoing funding that had been approved by Congress and therefore by law was just abruptly cut off. People were calling their members of Congress in frustration. Those members of Congress were saying, yeah, we're frustrated too. We don't think they can do this. Sound familiar? There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to the fever dreams of the American far right and what they want to do to the government and what they think they can do to the government if only the President is brave enough to not be constrained by those donkeys laws. When Nixon pulled this caper and tried to unilaterally close this agency that he hated, which, you know, Republicans denounced as evil and Marxist and all the rest, it was a scandal. People thought it was a worrying thing, not only in process, but in terms of the impact that it would have. And people banded together to save that agency.

Lyndon B. Johnson (7:54)

The changes he has brought about so far are sweeping in scope today. In Washington, thousands of people gathered to protest the President's actions. A gathering of city mayors and of poor people's organizations. Gordon Graham covered that story. They came by the busload, more than 10,000 strong, to appeal to their senators and representatives, hoping the Congress might somehow save the inner city anti poverty programs the President has already begun to shut down.

Chris Hayes (8:26)

It wasn't just protests either. The little programs all over the country that were funded by that agency, they got together with, among other folks, the unions who represented the people who worked there. And they went to court to stop Nixon and to stop this unelected henchman Nixon had sent, who declared once he got in the door that he was there to kill that agency. And it was sort of a battle royale, including the President's kill the agency henchmen basically scoffing at the courts at one point, like whatever they said wouldn't matter anyway.

Lyndon B. Johnson (8:59)

Yesterday A federal district judge in Washington told the Nixon administration that it could not legally dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity, and the judge ordered the administration to stop doing it. The White House said today that the ruling is being studied and that the law will be. But the man who's doing the dismembering, Howard Phillips, says the ruling means only that he may have to work a little longer. And in his first reaction last night, he made clear he does not believe the court decision will save the agency. Unless the president changes his mind, there's going to be no money in the OEO budget after June 30th of this year. The employees union has been fighting the dismantlement. And today still worried, but a bit more, more optimistic. Staffers went next door to a theater to hear their lawyer talk about Phillips hardline reaction and the agency's future. It seems that your acting director was interviewed last evening on his way to a banquet in Boston. He says here the worst thing that can happen is that I might have a little bit longer to administer this place. I do expect that we will complete our mission along the schedule that has been set forth. If he really means that he will complete his mission as it has been previously announced, he's either a prophet or in contempt. The employee's big hope is that Congress, with support from the courts, will now insist OEO be retained. Paul Duke, NBC News, was Washington.

Chris Hayes (10:37)

If Howard Phillips says he'll still accomplish his mission of killing this agency, quote, he's either a prophet or in contempt, as in, in contempt of court because the courts just said he can't kill this agency. There was all this bluster from Nixon's guy, Howard Phillips, saying he was going to defy the courts, right? Saying that the court's ruling here didn't matter. Don't worry, we're getting it anyway. But the, you know, despite the, despite that, despite the pressure that the Nixon administration tried to put on the people who were trying to keep this place alive, the backlash and the efforts by people who were standing up for this agency, in the end, it worked. They went to the courts. The courts said, yeah, what they're doing is illegal. They can't do it. And the Office of Economic Opportunity stayed open, thanks to the protests, thanks to the defiance, thanks to the public scandal, thanks to the press coverage, and yes, thanks to that court order. And what did Howard Phillips do? He soon resigned from that job in the Nixon administration. For what it's worth, just in case you're interested, sidebar, Howard Phillips went on to an illustrious Career as a crank, perennial far right third party presidential candidate for which he's mostly remembered today for his furious denunciations of the term miss it is miss or misses and there is no miss and we must abolish miss Vote for me for President. He was also known for vehemently demanding that the Department of Education should be abolished. He said this was something so important that American political leaders should be prepared to give their lives, they should be prepared to die in order to abolish the Department of Education. That's what became of Howard Phillips after his stint at the Office of Economic Opportunity. But you know, the right really hated that agency. And this is also important part of the story years later. They did succeed in killing that agency off, but they did it legally. They had Congress vote to get rid of it. And it was still controversial and people still wanted to keep it, but they had a vote in Congress and got rid of it. Congress had created it and funded it. So the only entity that can legally get rid of it is Congress. You know, Nixon had said that's how he wanted to do it, but he got impatient and decided he should just be able to kill it on his own, say so. And so he tried to do that by sending in this henchman in there to declare it closed, but it was plainly illegal for him to do it that way. Had he just waited for Congress, he might have won the argument in Congress, got it shut down legally. Instead, the courts stopped him and it took years and years and years for them to get it shut down the right way. Ryan La Rochelle is a political scientist at the University of Maine. He recently wrote about this incident for Time magazine. He said, quote, so far, Trump and Musk have followed Nixon's playbook and ignored his lack of success. So, I mean, in some ways we have been here before and so have they, but the law is still the law from 50 years ago and from hundreds of years ago and now. I mean, look at this. This is from the New York Times in the middle of this scandal in April 1973, quote, unless and until Congress decides otherwise, it is the duty of the President and his subordinates to administer every program in good faith and in accord with the legislated purposes. That principle is so fundamental that it is familiar to every student of constitutional law. That principle is so fundamental. Last night, just after we got off the air, a federal judge in Washington ordered the immediate reinstatement of the foreign aid that was in place when Trump took office, because Congress had appropriated it, because that's how we make decisions. About what is funded in this country by court order. Last night, he ordered that foreign aid must be restarted late last night. Earlier yesterday, a different federal judge told the Trump administration that they are also not allowed to put the whole staff of USAID on leave, even though they really want to. USAID is funded by congressional appropriations, and Congress makes those decisions in our system of government. And so a federal judge blocked that mass firing at USAID yesterday as well. Then today, in a similar order, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the staff of that agency, has brought the Trump administration to court. Now, the Trump administration has been court ordered to stop its plans to destroy data, terminate employees, or take the agency's budget. These guys so hate that this is the law, but this is the law, and at least for now, we still have law. If there is a case to be made to shut down an agency, tell Congress you want them to shut it down, and then have them debate it and vote on it and pass a bill to shut down that agency. That's how you can do it legally. Why are you so afraid of even trying to do it legally? Your party controls both houses of Congress. What, you don't think they'll do what you want, you don't think you have sway over the Republican Party can make them do that. The two things that are different since the Nixon debacle, along These same lines 50 years ago, two things that are different are, number one, at this time, they are openly saying that they don't think they need to obey the courts. In some instances, they are de facto defying the courts already by not complying with court orders that have come in against them already. Court orders telling them to reverse some of what they've done. Now, they're not conceding that they're in defiance of the court. They're still showing up and defending their actions. So at this point, they haven't raced all the way to the end of the game and just declared a dictatorship, but they are openly musing about how they think they ought to and how it's within their rights, including Vice President J.D. vance putting his musings on this subject in print within the last few days. So that's different. Them just entertaining the idea that maybe we won't have law anymore. But the second way that things are different is by the tech gloss on what they're doing. And I say it's a gloss because they're really trying to make us think of what they're doing in these terms. You might have seen Elon Musk making a speech at a Big international conference this week in which he wore a T shirt that said tech support. It's not a flattering look, but he thought it was hilarious. He tried to say this T shirt was a very funny joke, that he's White House tech support. You know, for our generation of Howard Phillips'our generation of the let's kill the US Government and we don't care if it's legal or not. Our guys have claimed the right to do what they're doing. Not just because of their wild eyed zeal against the US government and the US system of governing. They have claimed the right to do this. They've sort of claimed that their legitimacy comes from their tech savvy because they're so good with computers. So we're all supposed to get out of their way or we're supposed to be intimidated or at least confused by what exactly they're doing because w such a high level right, it's so high tech. They're so tech savvy, so competent, so good at what they're doing. How could we mere mortals possibly understand? 404 Media today reported that on the website for Doge I don't know, doggy dodgy Doge I don't know, whatever we're supposed to call it. On their own website that Elon Musk's agency destroying group has set up for themselves, it appears that random members of the public have been able to upload joke categories and database entries onto that website that show up as if they are official doge.gov data. And people can add random stuff to this website not because there's like a post your public comment here section, but because apparently when Doge designed this website for itself, they didn't know how or they forgot to make the website secure so other people couldn't post random stuff on it. 404 Media reporting today that people were posting things like quote, these experts left their database open, end quote. This is a joke of a.gov site. Remember, these are our high tech overlords at the Huffington Post. Today they've got comment from an unnamed employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency pointing out that among the data that Elon Musk's little group has posted online on their apparently totally insecure, half baked website is classified information about the National Reconnaissance Office, which is the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains US Intelligence satellites. Quote Doge just posted secret no fore meaning nobody who's not a US national is supposed to see it. No foreign info on their website. Currently people are scrambling to check if their info has been accessed. This comes on the heels of Elon Musk telling reporters in the Oval Office that we should all be shocked, shocked. The American people should be shocked by the scandalous discovery he and his high tech team made while apparently pawing through Social Security records and data in that part of the government's guts. Because he's allowed to do that, I guess. He said the scandal that he and his team had uncovered in Social Security data is that there are people in the Social Security database who are listed as being 150 years old. And we don't know exactly what Mr. Musk was talking about because he's seeing stuff that I think he's not allowed to see. And neither are we. But today people started gingerly asking if perhaps Mr. Musk just didn't know that in an older version of the programming language that is used by the Social Security Administration, when you didn't have a date to enter in a particular field, it would code it as 150 years ago. It would code it as 1875. The year 1875 is essentially an error message to let you know that there isn't a real date in that record. And so you should treat that as an error and find out what went wrong. Does he know that or does he really think those are records for 150 year old people? Does he know what he's looking at when he's pawing through your Social Security records? Remember, it's their technical prowess and know how that's supposed to impress us and make us think this is somehow different than when a far right power mad, doomed president tried to do this exact same thing in 1973. We're supposed to be intimidated here. That measles outbreak we told you about last night in West Texas, it has now doubled in size as of today. The CDC also has fired as many as 1300 people. Today the intelligence staff at the Department of Energy sent its staff an urgent warning about how to respond to Elon Musk's team seeking access to sensitive classified materials about nuclear weapons. And at the National Nuclear Security Administration today, which is responsible for keeping our nukes safe, they fired a significant portion of their staff today, hundreds of staff members. Yesterday we got word that Trump and Musk's little squad of genius web developers and software engineers, the folks who may have accidentally posted the classified information on their website and left open some sort of back door so that random members of the public can post stuff on it. That genius squad has now reportedly been sent into the irs. So now that group is in there with your tax information while tonight we get word that at the irs, just ahead of tax filing season, they are about to fire thousands, maybe 9,000 people who actually work there to handle your taxes. The combination of the smash and grab by the supposedly high tech team and the mass firing of people who actually do know what they're doing means real material harm is being done to our country and it will take a long time to repair it when we finally get to start. But there is nothing high tech about what they are doing and there's nothing new about their intentions. There's also nothing new about the old, very foundational law that made this kind of operation illegal 50 years ago and makes it equally illegal now. More to come tonight. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Commercial Insurance Business owners meet Progressive Insurance. They make it easy to get discounts on commercial auto insurance and find coverages to grow with your business. Quote in as little as 7 minutes@progressivecommercial.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company coverage provided and serviced by affiliated and third party insurers. Discounts and coverage selections not available in all states or situations.

Lisa Rubin (24:43)

Businesses that are selling through the roof like Untuck it make selling and for shoppers buying simple with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet, and with shop Pay you can boost conversions up to 50%. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify, upgrade your business and get the same checkout Untuck it uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com podcast free. All lowercase go to shopify.com podcastfree to upgrade your selling today.

Rachel Maddow (25:12)

Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts new episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows now ad free plus ad free Listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News and all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad free and with bonus content including why is this Happening? Felshy Band Book Club and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Chris Hayes (25:44)

We can talk all we want about values. Values are important. But you can't shoot values. You can't shoot flags and you can't shoot strong speeches. You can't like shoot with them or you can't shoot at them? You can't shoot them. Are we sure he's not talking about like shots? You know what I mean? U.S. secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a meeting of the NATO defense ministers this week. I think that was supposed to sound tough. Came off a little more like something your Least favorite uncle posts on Facebook next to a picture of an assault rifle and like nine empty beer cans. But Secretary Hegseth began this trip by bewildering not just our allies, but also a lot of people in Washington when he inexplicably blurted out that any peace deal in the Russia Ukraine war would have to include Ukraine giving up its territory and abandoning its bid to join NATO. That would imply that the peace talks have already happened and Ukraine already had to give everything up. Why would they talk? We mentioned last night that Secretary Hegseth has now tried to walk those comments back, but I think it is worth you hearing exactly how he started his remarks when he was trying to take back what he said the other day as it pertains to NATO membership not being realistic outcome for negotiations. That's something that was stated as part of my remarks here, as part of a coordination with how we're executing these ongoing negotiations. That was. Say that again. Can we diagram that sentence? That's something that was stated as part of my remarks. It's like he asked Chatgpt to come up with the most passive voice way to say, you know what, I need to take back that dumb thing. I said, it's not just our allies abroad who reacted negatively to Pete Hegseth's comments. After Hegseth made those comments, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Roger Wicker, responded by saying, quote, I prefer we don't give away negotiating positions before we actually get started. After Hegseth then tried to take it back, walk back what he'd said and say he didn't really mean it, Senator Wicker then responded again, saying, quote, he made a rookie mistake. I don't know who wrote the speech. It's the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written and quote, carlson is a fool, said the senator. Again, that is a member of Pete Hegseth's own political party boldly criticizing his performance on this trip. It's worth noting, as Senator Wicker was making that unfavorable comparison to Mr. Carlson, Mr. Carlson himself was posting a new interview with Hungary's authoritarian leader Viktor Orban, an interview where, as politics Politico puts it, quote, orban repeated Kremlin talking points that Russia invaded Ukraine in a bid to stop it from joining NATO. Because, yes, Russia was on the ropes. They were the real victim here. They just had to invade. Meanwhile, today, Ukraine accused Russia's military of ramming a drone with a high explosive warhead on it into the former Chernobyl nuclear site. The drone reportedly damaged the protective shield that is supposed to prevent radiation leaks from that famously radioactive site. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the damage was significant, but he says there are not currently signs of increased radiation. Amid all of this, the vice president of the United States managed to make things even more confusing, making his own sort of rookie moves. On his own first trip abroad, he told the Wall Street Journal that the US Would potentially take military action in the war in Ukraine, as in US Troops in Ukraine. Everybody in this administration seems to be taking the approach that they should just say whatever pops into their head and try cleaning it up. Later, Vice President Vance said that the Wall Street Journal had twisted his words. The Wall Street Journal does not appear to have conceded they've done any such thing. Joining us now from Munich, Germany, is former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who has stayed up till, oh, dark 30 to be with us tonight. In the middle of the night, sir, thank you so much for Jo, appreciate it.

Michael McFaul (30:14)

Always a pleasure to be on with you. Rachel.

Chris Hayes (30:18)

These remarks from Pete Hegseth at the outset here speaking with NATO leaders were obviously not just damaging, but embarrassing. And he then tried to take them back. We're in sort of a different situation with remarks that have since been made there by Vice President Vance. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about Vice President Vance's speech there and how it was received.

Michael McFaul (30:43)

Well, first, it was just a rookie mistake is very generous. I've negotiated with the Russians before. They're tough negotiators, and you don't just capitulate and give them what they want before you start the negotiations. And the vice president could have clarified things today at the Munich Security Conference. He could have devoted his speech to saying what the United States position is, what the Trump administration official position is to try to clean it up. But instead, he gave a speech about how democracy is failing in Europe. He said that that was a bigger threat to Europe than Russia or China. And he said that in a room filled with generals and mad males and Ukrainian soldiers. And again, I don't need to tell you, Rachel, the irony of the vice president of the United States, who works for President Trump, telling the Europeans that they're doing a bad job at democracy, given what we are going through right now and given what we went through four years ago, really was quite insulting for this audience. So it was just, it was a great opportunity to say clearly what their position was, and instead he chose to lecture them about democracy.

Chris Hayes (31:53)

I also understand that Vice President Vance made the decision in Germany at this meeting to not meet with the German Chancellor and in instead to meet with the leaders of Germany's far right party AfD, which is viewed by many Germans as sort of unsettling inheritors of the legacy of the Nazi party, frankly. What do you make of this decision? Is this a logistics decision or is this a loud message? And if so, how is it being heard?

Michael McFaul (32:24)

Definitely not a logistics decision. Anybody that the Vice President wanted to meet with, he could. But it underscores the other message of his speech. His speech was basically adopt our interpretation of values, mega values. And again, these guys, there's a big contradiction. They talk about sovereignty all the time, but when it comes to German sovereignty, they're perfectly willing to get involved. There's elections here in just a few days here in Germany and it was not well received. I've been to this conference many, many times. I can, I cannot recall a speech that so many people were so insulted by.

Chris Hayes (33:04)

Mike, the news out of Ukraine today, this video that we've seen of this drone with what appears to be a high explosive warhead on it smashing into the containment dome, the sort of sarcophagus that covers the highly radioactive Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. Those images are so chilling and so unsettling. Can I just ask your reaction to that? Ukraine claims this is a Russian military drone. Russia is essentially disclaiming responsibility for it. How are you viewing this?

Michael McFaul (33:38)

Well, Rich, I spent most of my day today with Ukrainians, including soldiers. They're fighting and they fought courageously for three years. But when they hear our president say that he trusts Vladimir Putin and that he's going to do a deal with Vladimir Putin and then present it to the Ukrainian people and they experience what you were just showing your viewers, there's a lot of dissonance there. They don't trust Putin. Putin is their enemy. And it makes them very nervous when the President of the United States, who they need and rely on to continue to fight against the Russians, are saying he trusts Putin.

Chris Hayes (34:19)

Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul joining us tonight live from Munich, where it is three fricking 30 in the morning. Ambassador Mikfaul, I now owe you. At some point you can wake me up at 3:30 in the morning for something. I owe you at least a beer when you get back. Thank you very much for being up at this time for us. Thank you. Thanks for having me right back. Stay with us.

Lisa Rubin (34:42)

Businesses that are selling through the roof, like Untuck it, make selling and for shoppers, buying simple with Shopify Home of the number one check out on the planet and with Shop Pay you can boost conversions up to 50%. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify, upgrade your business and get the same checkout untuck it uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com podcastfree all lowercase go to shopify.com podcastfree to upgrade your selling today.

Rachel Maddow (35:11)

Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts New episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows now ad free plus ad free Listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News and all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad free and with bonus content including why Is this Happening? Velshi Band Book Club and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple podcasts the first 100 days bills are passed, executive orders are signed and presidencies are defined. And for Donald Trump's first 100 days, Rachel Maddow is on MSNBC five nights a week.

Chris Hayes (35:53)

Now is the time, so we're gonna.

Rachel Maddow (35:55)

Do it, providing her unique insight and analysis during this critical time.

Chris Hayes (35:59)

How do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information, this moment of transition in our country?

Rachel Maddow (36:05)

The Rachel Maddow show weeknights at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC.

Chris Hayes (36:13)

We have new developments tonight in the fast moving dramatic story of mass resignations at the Justice Department over a matter of principle. Last night we reported that it was a six resignation day at DOJ. Trump installed leaders at Main justice told SDNY. They told the acting U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York that she needed to dismiss corruption charges against New York's Mayor Eric Adams. It appeared to be some sort of frankly repellent deal to get the mayor's support and assistance with Trump's mass deportation efforts in exchange for these charges against him going away. The SDNY U.S. attorney refused to do it and she quit because SDNY wouldn't do it. Trump's appointees at Main justice then ordered prosecutors at Main justice in Washington that they should do it instead. But that didn't work out as planned either. Two, then three, then four, then five more prosecutors at Main justice quit rather than put their names on the effort to drop these charges against Eric Adams. So that's six high profile resignations from the Justice Department since yesterday and now a seventh. The lead prosecutor in that corruption case against Eric Adams also quit today, sending a resignation letter that feels like it'd burn your fingers if you touch it. It included this line, which you may now cross stitch on all the pillows in the world and pass them down to your kids and grandk. Quote, I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me. So as of this morning, seven principled resignations and the Eric Adams charges still weren't dropped. At which point Trump's acting deputy Attorney general, Emil Bovey. And this is true, confirmed by NBC News legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Emile Beauvais convened all the prosecutors in the Justice Department's Public Integrity section, like two dozen or so prosecutors, convened them all together in the same place and told them they had one hour to decide which one of them was going to sign the motion calling for the charges to be dismissed. Emile Beauvais apparently made clear that promotions were in the offing for anybody who'd be willing to sign this motion. And if you weren't willing to sign, well, they could all be fired. Ultimately, one veteran career prosecutor who is apparently nearing retirement said he would volunteer to sign the motion basically under duress, not because he necessarily supported it, but because he was hoping to save all of his colleagues jobs. And so tonight, Trump's Justice Department has filed this motion in federal court in New York tonight. United States of America v. Eric Adams, defendant, quote, the United States respectfully submits this motion seeking dismissal without prejudice of the charges in this case, with leave of the court. And without prejudice is the legal language there that allows them to bring these charges back whenever they want, whenever the mayor of America's largest city, you know, gets out of line and stops doing what Trump wants. But note that other phrase there with leave of the court, that's important. This filing tonight, as hard as it was for Trump's Justice Department to get it done, it doesn't just end the case, because the Justice Department can't just unilaterally say charges are dismissed after they've already brought charges in court. This is a matter in court being overseen by a federal judge now. And the federal judge in the case has to sign off on dropping these charges. And, and that might be a whole new thing, too. The details of that, you're going to want to hear this. Lisa Rubin joins us to update us on that next new statement just out tonight from seven former U.S. attorneys from SDNY, Southern District of New York. These Democrats and Republicans, quote, as former U.S. attorneys for the Southern District of New York, we commend U.S. attorney Daniel Sassoon on her decision to resign. Her commitment to integrity and the rule of law reflects the finest traditions of the Southern District, United States Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice. The department's announced intent to investigate Ms. Sassoon and some of the career prosecutors who served alongside her is a stark departure from those traditions, and that should concern everyone committed to the pursuit of justice without fear or favor. And it is signed by seven former U.S. attorneys from SDNY, Robert Fisk, John S. Martin, Mary Jo White, James Comey, David Kelly, Jeffrey Berman, Audrey Strauss. After seven different prosecutors, including Sassoon, resigned rather than accede to the demand to drop the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, that request to the court to drop the charges, it has now finally been made. But charges don't just get dropped on their own automatically because the Justice Department says to the judge overseeing the case now has to consider that request from the Justice Department. What is that likely to entail? Is this saga ongoing? Joining us now is Lisa Rubin, MSNBC legal correspondent. Lisa, your reporting on this has just been invaluable. Have I explained any of this the wrong way around yet, or have I pretty much got it right?

Paul Duke (41:56)

No, it's all been right and it's all terrifying. Rachel, thank you for having me.

Chris Hayes (42:01)

What is the judge going to do here? I imagine that the judge doesn't have that much discretion about ultimately whether or not to drop the charges, but presumably there is some process that happens here next, right?

Paul Duke (42:13)

There's not always a process, but if there are circumstances where the judge feels that he or she needs to get to the bottom of a nali prosecui motion, and that's what this is. This is a motion to dismiss after prosecution has already been brought, that judge has some latitude to call for or hearings or other processes that allow them to understand what happened. The most recent example I can think of in the Southern District itself involves a case in 2020 and 2021 where after the defendant was convicted, it came out that the prosecutors had essentially buried a piece of evidence that would have been exculpatory for the defendant. And the judge in that case actually asked for affidavits and evidence from the U.S. attorney's office, trying to understand how did this happen? Was this purposeful? Did this constitute prosecutorial misconduct? And while she determined that none of it was intentional, she did refer all of the attorneys who were involved to the Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice. Those are the sorts of things that are within the power of a judge facing a motion like this.

Chris Hayes (43:18)

Rachel, what should we expect in terms of timing, in terms of the response time from Judge Ho and when he might, if he is going to hold substantive proceedings in terms of figuring out what happened here, what caused this huge uproar in the Justice Department. What would you expect in terms of when that might happen and when those proceedings might happen?

Paul Duke (43:37)

I think it's entirely within Judge Ho's discretion to decide who, what, when, how, and why. But I would expect, knowing him, and I will, in full disclosure, Judge Ho is a law school classmate of mine. I expect that he'll move fairly expeditiously and ask everyone to come to the table, and he may even tell them in advance. These are the sort of questions I have around this request and around some of the communications that have gone back and forth. You know, you referred to the memo that Danielle Sassoon wrote when she was trying to explain to the attorney general why she couldn't do this. That's a memo that many people have said to me that was written for a court. But there may be much more behind the scenes that Judge Ho wants to see, including correspondence or communications between the lawyers for Eric Adams and the Department of Justice that the New York Times reported on yesterday, essentially saying that the Department of Justice was feeding Eric Adams lawyers. Hey, tell us more about how this is an impediment to your boss or your client, I'm sorry, doing his job. That might be the sort of thing that Judge Ho wants to understand to determine whether or not there was a quid pro quo here, Rachel.

Chris Hayes (44:44)

Yeah, I mean, we'll see what the judge decides to do here. But there's a very real possibility that this saga is not over and that this, at the very outset of the Trump Justice Department, may be something that haunts them seriously for a long way from now. Lisa Rubin, MSNBC legal correspondent, working triple time as always. Lisa, thank you so much.

Paul Duke (45:05)

Thank you.

Chris Hayes (45:06)

We'll be right back. This week has been a year, but you know what? All across the country, people have been showing up in person, making their opposition to Trump's actions and agenda known. This was the scene outside the Stonewall Inn today in New York City. Hundreds of people showed up to protest the Trump administration removing all mention of trans people from the Stonewall National Memorial site, which, after all, commemorates a riot by trans people. It's like telling Cooperstown they're no longer allowed to mention baseball anymore. This was a different part of New York city yesterday. About 400 protesters marching from one ICE office Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office to another to protest the Trump administration's immigration actions. Around the same time, all the way across the country, protesters gathered outside a Tesla dealership in Seattle to protest Elon Musk's gutting of the federal government as the president's top campaign donor. Today in Boston, Massachusetts, hundred Look at this. Hundreds of people marched on Boston Common to protest against both Trump and again, his top campaign donor, Elon Musk. In D.C. today, federal workers and their supporters and regular members of the public protested outside the Health and Human Services building as Robert F. Kennedy started his first full day of work as HHS secretary. They left valentines for Valentine's Day that were made with spoons, which is a sort of adorable way to say get lost in response to the Trump administration's resign or else fork in the road emails. Hey, fork you. We're not doing it. Here's some spoons instead. Over this weekend, we're expecting additional protests this coming Monday. President's Day. A whole bunch of different groups are planning a national day of protests on Monday. We expect that the main protest will be at the U.S. capitol in Washington, D.C. at upper Senate Park. But we're also expecting, once again, satellite protests at state capitols and city halls and town halls all across the country. Expecting a pretty major day of protest on Monday. This Monday, President's Day in D.C. and around the country, people are mad about what Trump and his administration are doing. They are being loud about it. All right, that's going to do it for me for now. I will see you again here Monday night and all next week at 9pm Eastern.

Rachel Maddow (47:35)

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Chris Hayes (47:48)

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